1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to video on demand (VOD) streaming service, and more particularly, to an apparatus and a method for clients/users to select and request advertisements during the VOD streaming service (VOD service).
2. Description of the Related Art
VOD streaming service has undergone remarkable developments, technically. However, the VOD streaming service business is in a rudimentary stage compared to the technical developments due to the absence of business models.
An example of a conventional method of advertising for VOD streaming service includes providing advertisements prior to contents which a client desires to receive, when an Internet contents service provider provides the desired contents to the client. In order to perform the method, the Internet contents service provider receives advertisement contents from advertisers and processes the advertisement contents into files to be transferred over the Internet. The Internet contents service provider adds searching data to the processed files and stores the files in a database server. When the client accesses the web server of the Internet contents service provider and selects contents of a service, advertisement contents corresponding to personal information on the client and the selected service contents, are searched in the database server and provided to the client. In particular, when the client watches the received selected advertisements, a check message is transferred to the web server of the Internet contents service provider. When the web server receives the check message, the web server provides the client the selected service contents from the database server.
FIG. 1 is a system diagram of a conventional video on demand (VOD) streaming service system. The conventional VOD streaming service system is formed of a VOD server 100, a network 110, clients 120, and an advertiser 130. Here, the VOD server 100 providing VOD streaming service, processes various multimedia contents and stores them in a database. The network 110 is a virtual space where data are transferred when requesting the VOD streaming service and providing the contents in connection with the VOD. The clients 120 are terminals outputting multimedia data requests for the VOD streaming service from the VOD server 100 through the network 110 and processing received multimedia contents in response to the requests, thereby allowing a user to select and output favored contents from among the contents provided from the VOD server 100. The advertiser 130 pays money to a VOD streaming service provider having the VOD server 100 so that the VOD server 100 provides advertisement contents of the advertiser 130, along with VOD contents, to the clients 120. In particular, the advertiser 130 and/or the Internet contents provider 100 control and provide advertisements according to client profiles collected by the VOD server 100 prior to allowing the clients 120 to receive selected services, such as VOD services (multimedia service content).
In another example of the conventional method of advertising for a VOD streaming service, when the client watches the advertisements, the corresponding advertiser pays a fee for the VOD contents (service) used by the client on behalf of the client.
In the above described conventional methods of advertising for a VOD streaming service, the client watches the advertisements prior to receiving the selected VOD contents. Further, the client cannot select the advertisements but passively receives and watches whatever advertisements are provided by an Internet contents service provider and then receives the selected VOD contents. Thus, a novel VOD streaming service system and business model based thereon which provides a new billing model for the contents of the VOD streaming service, and provides, for example, attracting advertisements that promote the client's interests, is needed.